The invention relates to means for temporarily securing eyeglasses and other eyewear when not being worn.
For those who use eyeglasses, sunglasses, safety glasses or other eye coverings having temples (“eyewear” or “eyeglasses”), it is sometimes necessary to remove the eyewear and temporarily secure, hold or stow it within reach but in a way that allows the continued use of both hands. Common methods of doing so include folding the eyeglasses and suspending them from one temple (the pieces extending from the sides of each lens to behind each ear) over a shirt collar, the placket of a buttoned shirt, a pocket patch, a belt or the end of another vertical surface. Unfortunately, this means of stowage is not secure, and the eyewear can easily fall, resulting in damage or loss. Many designs have made attempts at improving the security of such temporary storage. Some modify the temple or attach a clip to the temple at the time of eyewear manufacture. Others attach a clip or similar feature following purchase of the eyewear. These involve an additional hinge, are cumbersome to mount, negatively affect the appearance and attractiveness of the eyewear, are easily separated and lost from the eyewear, don't work, require special materials to tolerate stress as a spring clip, require special dexterity on the part of the user to open or close, are suitable for only a limited portion of the existing range of eyewear, or can otherwise result in inconvenience, damage to property, or personal injury in use.
Prior art patents include U.S. Pat. No. 1,779,015 (Schmitt), that utilizes temple clips either molded as one piece with the temple bar or attached by rivet or clamp to the temple bar. U.S. Pat. No. 1,898,059 (McDonald) utilizes a temple clip attached by split-barrel clamp and retained with a set screw. Retrofit clips for eyewear temples include U.S. Pat. No. 4,903,375 (DiFranco) that uses a plastic clip to attach to a variety of temple pieces through the use of two “O” rings. U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,727 (McCloskey) provides several embodiments of an attachable pocket clip made of an elastically deformable material, such as a U-shaped spring steel clasp. Like DiFranco '375, the device of McCloskey '727 is not a rigid attachment, and its U-shaped embodiment does not provide a secure fit. Different designs are used for different temple piece cross sections.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,316,654 and 4,496,224, (Allen), relate to eyeglass frames where the frames themselves are manufactured with pocket clips attached to the rims of eyeglass lenses. U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,906 (Kren) involves an eyeglass storage clip attached to a temple piece with a dual barrel design. It consists of several parts and uses spring clips to attach to a garment or pocket.
The disadvantages of the prior art are (1) that temple bar clips add a third or third and fourth hinge and hence add difficulty and expense to manufacture and assembly (as in Schmitt '075, McDonald '059, Allen '654, Allen '224 or Kren '906), and (2) that the retrofit configurations of DiFranco '375, McCloskey '727, and others include not only the disadvantages of (1) but they are not elegant, stylish, applicable to a significant portion of the eyewear available, or strong enough to last as long as the eyeglasses.
A principal object of the present invention is to provide a means of temporarily securing eyewear utilizing essentially the existing temple-to-frame hinge axis, does not require special elastically deformable materials to tolerate the repeated stresses and strains of being forced onto and off the object to which the eyewear is being temporarily attached, does not require unusual dexterity to open or close, does not interfere with the more permanent storage of the eyeglasses, does not project in a manner that could result in injury to persons or damage clothing or other articles in use, and does not significantly add to the cost or complexity of manufacture, assembly, packaging or distribution.